


LUCID

by kittykimora



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreams vs. Reality, Dreamsharing, F/M, Female Damon Salvatore, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 22:03:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4116436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittykimora/pseuds/kittykimora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five lucid dreamers who have never met connect through a website founded on the concept of lucid dreaming and experience other worlds through their dreams. Eventually they struggle to comprehend what is real and what is within the dream.<br/>Warnings: Male Bonnie, Fem Damon, Fem Kai.</p>
            </blockquote>





	LUCID

It begins as an idea. 

The ground forms first, shifting under his feet and nearly hurling him forward. He steadies himself, heels digging into sand as coils of weed begin to tangle around his boots. The ringing in his ears feels like the static of an old radio, his body trying to find the right station. He narrows his eyes, squinting against the shimmering sun. 

It’s happening. He’s doing it, he thinks and smiles until his cheeks begin to ache. He’s creating a world within the dream. 

The earth wobbles into a crumbling city, sprawling over the desert landscape. He tries to catch his breath as his face burns from the searing flush. Focus…one…two, he counts his breathing…three. He hikes on ahead, wind whipping his face while the sand stings his green eyes. It snaps at his white tee-shirt, biting through his flesh and knocks him down. His knees feel raw against the biting sand, fingers clawing the grains to continue his trek. He has to continue toward the crumbling castle, past its collapsing walls smothered with vines because he knows that’s where she is. Bennett doesn’t know how he knows this but he knows this as surely as he knows that there are forty steps that lead to the swiftly forming tower. This is where he will find Damien, in the tower. The buzz of the sun crawls over his skin like fire ants feeding on road kill. He gasps inhaling blistering, sand-filled air and tries to control the dream again. He tries to bend its will but the more he tries, the weaker he becomes and he can feel how heavy his limbs have become. Bennett drags his blistering legs along the sand but it keeps pulling him down, suckling on his flesh until it’s sucked him waist deep into its grit. 

When he comes to, he’s drenched in sweat and his mouth is parched. He lies in bed a while longer breathing hard and fast with his fists clenched at his sides. He groans when he hears music vibrating through the walls of his dorm room. His Motley Crue fan neighbor is having another practice session again. Glancing at the alarm clock on the nightstand he realizes that he’s only been dreaming for thirty minutes even though it felt like hours. Its 10.30 on a Friday night and the entire campus is wide awake. 

Swinging his feet to the floor, he curls his toes as the rhythm of the music quivers through the carpeted floor into the soles of his feet. He slips on his flip-flops, the soles slapping against his heels as he trudges toward the bathroom.  
Bennett turns on the faucet and splashes his face with warm water. After drying his face vigorously with a hand towel, he glares at his red rimmed eyes as if willing the fatigue away. He’s been able to stay in the dream longer this time, he smiles wiping the fog from the mirror with the palm of his hand.  
“You’re getting better at controlling them” he tells his reflection. Sure the dream wasn’t as successful as his last attempts, he didn’t actually see her but he’s getting better at piloting the dreams and that’s all that matters. 

Picking up his notebook, he opens it and begins to write. He’s been keeping a dream journal since the accident, hoping to catch a glimpse of her everytime he’s lucid. Dreaming about Damien in a normal dream sphere is not the same as when he’s lucid. When he’s aware that he’s dreaming, Bennett is in a different mind frame and his interactions with her feel more tangible. She feels alive to him then, energetic, impulsive and adventurous. His grin widens as he scrawls on his log book and a glance at the photograph on his desk seems to fuel his passion of keeping a record of his lucid dreams. He traces a finger along her photograph, outlining the slope of her nose and the tumble of ink-black hair around her shoulders.  
“Damien Lily Salvatore” Bennett murmurs, gazing into her unrestrained blue eyes and accepts her challenge, “I will find you” he vows.  


\---oOo---  
Kai feels normal here not like in the waking world. In here she’s the architect, she’s limitless. She tries to remember how long she’s been here but she draws a blank. Cold sweat trickles down the nape of her neck wriggling inside her hoodie. She reminds herself that’s its artificial secretion, she doesn’t sweat here. Nothing is real here. 

It’s a grey mist that wraps around her until all she can see are twinkling will-o’-wisps in the distance. There’s no sound, nothing but the sway of the blinking lights and her heavy breathing. As she begins to move through the swirling mist toward the lights, a shudder ripples through her. It’s a tremor that leaves her knees weak but as they give way beneath her, her skin begins to tingle. When Kai stretches out her arms she realizes what’s happening, she’s vanishing. The cuffs of her denim jacket start to blur, shaky and transparent as if someone were erasing her from the dream. Unable to fight it, she rolls her head back and allows the mist to carry her.

When she wakes up Motley Crue is still playing. Untangling herself from the sheets, she kicks off the blankets and feels along the wall with her hand until she finds the light switch. She hates the dark, it still frightens her but she’s learning to realize that not all monsters lurk there. She’s not in Oregon anymore and her family cannot hurt her here. 

Switching off the stereo, she shuffles to what she calls the kitchen. It’s basically a small bar fridge, a moody microwave and a toaster. They all hug one corner of the small dorm room, owning the space so much so that they feel like family. She picks a streak of blue from her brown hair and curls it around her finger. She’s cold, hungry and insanely bored. She hates February in New York because everything feels so detached. Then again, she probably hates the snow covered streets around the campus because she has had to live with them throughout the holidays. She didn’t go home like the rest of the students because she couldn’t.

She can never go back.

Ripping open a bag of tortilla chips, she stuffs a handful in her mouth and cracks her fridge open for leftover pizza. She moves around the cramped space of her dorm to reheat the slice in her second hand microwave. It’s noisy and has on occasion shot sparks from overuse but it’s her only option. Money is not something she can claim to be swimming in and the scholarship was really just a pure stroke of luck. It’s Friday night and she’s alone, she scoffs at the veracity of her position at NYU. 

Kai has never minded not having friends because being somewhat of a leper is something she has grown accustomed to. Everywhere she goes she’s always invisible just like in her dreams, she blurs at the edges and then poof she’s gone.  
She’s shivering, gazing out at the serene snow from her open window when the ping of a new chat message jolts her musing. Slowly she advances toward her laptop and plunks herself on the chair in front of it. She clicks past her owl screen saver and a blue and grey screen materializes displaying a new message. She smiles when she realizes that it’s from dream-wizard and clicks to open it. 

Dream-wizard said:  
11:03 PM: Are you still up?

Kai rolls her shoulders and flexes her fingers before she replies, 

Gemini said:  
11: 04 PM: Unfortunately yes.

A giggle bubbles out of her mouth before she can stop it with her hand and she rolls her eyes at her own naivety. She’s behaving like a typical college girl and she hates it. 

Dream-wizard said:  
11: 05 PM: Had a moment of lucidity again tonight but I couldn’t hold on long enough. It was clearer than the other times but…

Gemini said:  
11: 06 PM: You faded away

Dream-Wizard said:  
11:07 PM: So close…I feel like I’m disappointing her

Kai can almost hear him sigh heavily from behind his own computer screen. She’s imagined so many times what his environment must look like, whether he’s cocooned inside his blankets as he hammers they keys to his laptop or maybe he’s sitting at his desk much like she is . She pictures his clothes as she catches a glance of herself in the mirror on the front of her closet. Swiping a hair out of her grey eyes, she purses her lips and glares back at the screen. She drums her fingers against the desk, picks up her packet of chips and packs them into her mouth. He’s talking about her again, his dark angel, the one he’s been searching dream after dream for even though she died months ago. Kai would think it was pathetic if it wasn’t so sad and nauseatingly romantic. She can’t imagine someone doing that for her because she doesn’t think she deserves it. Her heart jumps when she hears the next ping and she swallows her chips, nearly choking on them. 

Dream-wizard said:  
11: 10 PM: Are you still there?

She nods and rubs her hands together before she begins typing again. The fact that he talks about his dead ex-girlfriend everytime he’s online with her should honestly not bother because she has never even met the guy. 

Gemini said:  
11: 15 PM: You’re not disappointing her. I’m sure she knows how much you love her.

They stay online for a while, unpacking dream theories and reality checks. She likes the anonymity of the whole scenario and she secretly hopes to never meet him because some mysterious are better left unsolved. 

\---oOo---

“Freud said dreams are the liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature” the professor yells from the front of the class and Bennett taps his pen against the edge of his desk, his left hand fisting the collar of his tee-shirt. He can still smell her as he presses his nose against the fabric. It was her favorite shirt to wear whenever she slept over at his dorm. It’s been four months since her death and Bennett’s been wearing it to carry her scent with him.  
“Basically Freud was calling dreams an escape mechanism” his voice booms around the room, “But what if dreams were real?”  
“What if they were so palpable that you could taste them, feel them and grasp them?” the professor ponders and Bennett scoots closer, as if this will make him better comprehend the professor. “Lucid dreams are the new gateway, ladies and gentlemen”  
From the corner of his eye Bennett can see a few students leaf through their textbooks frantically before looking at each other. Their textbooks clearly read Psychology so they must be questioning the relevance of today’s lecture.  
“Lucid simply means being aware” he crosses the front of the classroom, hands clasped behind his back. Bennett shifts in his seat, anxious to ask a question that has nagged him for months now.  
Thrusting his hand out, he asks “Professor Shane, can we reconstruct people and all their habits from memory?”  
When the rest of the class groans, his cheeks flush red because he knows exactly what they think of him. He clears his throat, seeking to explain himself for the benefit of the professor.  
“What I mean to say is, can we construct people in our dreams?” He cocks his head, green eyes narrowed.  
“Mr. Bennett, reality is what we paint” Professor Shane nods, “Anything is possible”  
“Now, as much as I’d like to stay” he chuckles gathering his textbooks and packing them neatly into his leather satchel “I have a hot date with Abnormal Psychology” he chuckles, heading out into the congested hallways.  
As the rest of the class disperses, Bennett collects his books and tucks them under his arm. He heads out into the corridor, pushing his way through the crowd while he checks his schedule on his tablet. He’s about to turn right towards Behavioral Sciences when he collides into someone. Bennett hears a gasp over the noise in the hallway and the flurry of books and papers. He drops a knee to the floor on a rescue mission and is vaguely aware of a veil of dark hair with a blue streak, a lemon grass scent and a pierced lip locked between teeth.  
“Shit!” she grunts, her startling grey eyes tearing into him. He blinks before he averts his gaze back to the floor where she’s handling his books. She rakes a hand through her ruffled hair as she scrambles to her feet. Head bolting up, he looks up at her as he collects the rest of his books from the floor.  
“I’m late for class” she explains, gesturing behind her with her thumb.  
“Go ahead, don’t let me stop you” Bennett mutters, keeping his head down. He can feel her hesitate before she finally drops down to her knees again in order to assist him.  
“Thank you, he offers as they both rise from the sticky floor. She seems to be staring at the thumb print logo on the front of his tee-shirt.  
“I know you” she eventually exclaims, pointing at him with her index finger. He notices her lacquered black nails and the assortment of rings adorning each finger.  
“You’re the boyfriend” she notes with amusement but his eyes lock on to her pierced lower lip. Bennett wonders if it hurts when she talks let alone when she eats something.  
“The boyfriend?” he asks, willing his eyes back to the rest of her face. She’s attractive, he thinks, if one likes their girl-next-door with a side of edge.  
“Your girlfriend was in that accident, the one where…” she chatters, then quickly catches her breath and sticks out her hand, “I’m Kai” she smiles, a grin made for apple-pies in Georgia. His eyes flicker to her scarred wrist as her hand hangs in the air waiting for his. Taking a deep breath, he steps back and smiles at her “Bennett” he replies clutching his books, “I don’t shake hands”  
“Of course you don’t, “she smirks looking at the doodles on his book before she reaches out and rips it from his grip.  
“Hey, “he protests but she spins around and she’s already skimming through his notes.  
“Dreams are the liberation of the spirit” she reads before he tears his notebook away from her. She feigns a shocked expression before her mouth forms a pout.  
“Catch you on the flip side, Bennett” she winks, walking backwards and away from him. He glances nervously around him because he’s genuinely perplexed by the entire run-in with her. Kai stuffs ear buds into her ears and cranks up the volume of her iPod. She gives Bennett half-wave then pivots away from him, pushing her way through the crowd until she disappears from his line of vision.  


-oOo-

“Well, that’s an ugly chair” Caroline comments as she pulls a pencil behind her ear, blonde hair flopping over her blue eyes. She’s wearing sweatpants, her legs dangling on the side of his bed and Stefan wonders why she’s not attending her American literature class. He touches his thumb to his tongue then attempts to scrape off the price stamp on the back of the chair.  
“So, this lucid dream theory of yours… is it something like Dungeons and Dragons?” she asks and Stefan raises his eyebrows.  
“Cause it sounds ridiculously lame” she smiles, her cheeks tickled pink with amusement.  
“Not as lame as you knowing about Dungeons and Dragons” he flicks a roasted nut at her and hits her nose.  
“Shut up” she tears a page from her notepad, scrunches it up and hurls it at him. When he ducks, it hits the wall and rolls mere centimeters from the door.  
“What’s this?” she motions to a willow hoop interwoven with green and purple feathers.  
“It’s a dream catcher” says Stefan as he tosses an NYU duffel bag on top of his cot.  
“Great, what’s it for?” she asks picking it up, “can I see it?” she chuckles even though it’s already in her hand, her fingers pinching the beads and examining the object.  
“I’d prefer if you didn’t, you’re kind of ruining its mojo”  
“It’s mojo?” her eyes widen and she smothers a giggle with her hand.  
“Yeah, no offense “he shrugs, giving her a little nudge before pulling the dream catcher from her grip. Blowing a hair out of her face and stretching her legs, Caroline responds,  
“None taken. Honestly between you and Bennett, I don’t know who the bigger dork is”  
“I think the word you’re looking for is geek” he wags a finger at her before he attacks his packet of nuts again.  
“Uhmm…no…nope, definitely dork” she sighs and flops back on his checkered pillow, notepad clutched to her chest.  
“So what are we doing tonight?” she asks, her eyes fixed to his stained ceiling, “Drinks in East Village, poetry reading in Brooklyn…”  
“Bennett and I are visiting Damien” he leans against his desk, left ankle crossed over his right.  
“The cemetery?” Quickly she props herself up on her elbow and wrinkles her nose at him.  
“You’re welcome to join us” Stefan replies casually, tossing a nut in the hair before catching it with his mouth.  
“I’ll take a rain check”


End file.
